Brighton cooks best UK pizza for second year running

The Jakub pizza from Brighton-based Pizzaface has been named National Pizza of the Year at the 2019 National Pizza Awards. The victory makes it back-to-back triumphs for the city of Brighton and Hove, after Purezza took home the trophy in 2018. This year’s winning pizza, cooked by Pizzaface’s Brigitta Stamber, features slices of thin-cut wild boar salami, dollops of creamy mascarpone cheese, homemade caramelised onions and some dried chillies.

“I did not expect it at all,” said Stamber. “Pizzaface is my baby. Creating it with Bertie [van der Beek], my best friend, has been a four-year journey, so this is a really big achievement. Particularly as a female, gay chef – it’s big, you know? When you think of pizza chefs, you think of Italian guys, so for a foreign girl to come in and win it makes me so proud of myself and so proud of Pizzaface.”

At the grand final, which was held on 7th November at Islington Metal Works, London, and hosted by Nigel Barden, 16 finalists created a technical pizza, which was made with ingredients supplied by Pan’Artisan, Tabasco, and Salvo, using a pizza oven from Linda Lewis Kitchens. They then submitted their signature pizza, which was created and crafted by them.

Other winners on the night included Ilias Kazantzidis from The Foundry Project, who won the Technical Pizza of the Year award, and Davide Parato from Crust Bros, who was named Pizza Chef of the Year.

The 2019 National Pizza Awards was sponsored by Farm Frites, Salvo, Banhoek Chilli Oil, Rehegoo Music, Lisa Lager, Tabasco, Joe Delucci’s Gelato, Linda Lewis Kitchens and Pan’Artisan.